Thank You For The Music
by emilia valentine
Summary: Rachel reflects on her life, through a certain Abba number. Totally AU, Faberry and Rina friendship, intitial Finntana, end game Finchel. ABBA.


_I'm nothing special. In fact, I'm a bit of a bore. _

Rachel wonders sometimes, deep down inside, if she is actually special.

She's always been told she was by her daddies, but how does she know it for sure? The other members of Glee sure don't seem to think she is. Or, at the very least, they don't tell her.

And as for boring? She _knows _she's that. All she ever talks about is Broadway and rehearsals. It's a miracle she has Tina and Quinn for friends.

_If I tell a joke, you've probably heard it before._

She remembers when she first met Quinn. It was like fourth grade, and she was having trouble fitting in with the rest of her classmates.

Then new girl Quinn Fabray came, and Rachel saw in her the chance of a friend.

She sat next to Rachel at lunch, and the first thing she said was;

"How did the chicken cross the road?"

Quinn just said "I've heard them all before."

They ended up being friends anyway.

_But I have a talent, a wonderful thing, 'cause everyone listens when I start to sing._

Ah yes, her voice.

She's ridiculously proud of it. Mainly because, despite her A grade average and decent looks, Rachel hasn't actually got that much to be proud of. She's stuck up to most people that don't know her, and she's never had a real, proper relationship.

But mostly she's proud of it because it makes her feel like she's being heard. In a world where she's always ignored, that's pretty special.

_I'm so grateful and proud, all I want to do is sing it out loud._

So she does.

Every chance Rachel gets, she sings. She's sings at Glee club, she sings at home, she sings at concerts in town, she sings for charity, she even sings at her second cousins wedding.

As long as her voice is soaring, she's happy.

_So, I say thank you for the music, the songs I'm singing. _

When she sings, it's like a piece of her sets alight.

The sound burns, forcing it's way out of her, dancing, undulating, curving. Some songs in particular make her feel like she's the only person in the world.

_Thanks for all, the joy they're bringing, who can live without it, I ask in all honesty._

One time, Santana says she doesn't really listen to music when she's not at Glee.

This shocks Rachel to the very core.

How could anybody live without music?

It's Rachel's life line. When ever she's feeling miserable because Finn is with Santana and not her, or after those moments when he looks at her and she remembers their kiss and she feels on top of the world, it's their, expressing her emotions perfectly and taking her out of whatever emotion she's feeling and into the world of song.

_What would life be? Without a song, or a dance, what are we?_Sometimes, Rachel wonders what her life would be like without her voice.

Would she be anyone? Anyone at all?

Or maybe she'd be just different.

But for better or worse?

_So I say thank you for the music, for giving it to me._

The first CD Rachel ever owned was the soundtrack to **Funny Girl**. She got it off Tina for her eighth birthday, and didn't understand how amazing it was to have music fill her bedroom until the day she put it on.

_Father says I was a dancer before I could walk._

Her daddies took her to her first dancing competition when she was three months old.

She won hands down.

Of course, she would. She's a natural born performer, she probably did musical screaming and acrobatic pre-natal dancing while in the womb.

_They say I began to sing before I could talk._

One time, her father tells her one evening, when she was about five months, he came into her nursery to find her glued to the TV version of **Wicked**. She was humming along to Popular, trying to mouth along to the words.

Her first word was sing.

_And I've often wondered, how did it all start?_

She has a theory, about the beginning of music. She reckons that the cave-people found their long, echoey caves too quiet at night, and they had to do something to fill the space.

She can't cope with quiet of any kind. Maybe that's why she talks so much.

_Who found out that nothing can capture a heart, like a melody can?_

When Finn sings to her, a few days after he's broken up with Santana, she feels her heart swell. Of course he can win her over with a song.

He was stupid to date Santana, but as long as he's sorry, who's she to prolong torture? And after all, she does love him.

_Who ever it was, I'm a fan. _

How could she not be? Whoever it was gave her Finn, a life, and most of all, a voice.

_So thank you for the music._

Thank you, thinks Rachel every single day.


End file.
